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This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.
The COVID pandemic was terrible in every way, but I had one strange bright spot in my locked in homebound routine. A weekly Zoom call with the genius director, writer and producer Ryan Coogler of Black Panther, Fruitvale Station and Creed fame. I know it surprised me too. You're about to learn more about how our relationship got started and our various takes on how we navigate creativity and collaboration on this episode of In Proximity, a podcast from Proximity Media, the company he founded with Zindzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian. It is a fun conversation with a person I really adore and admire. And I thought you'd like to hear it. And after you listen, I encourage you to go subscribe to In Proximity because it is a great show, especially if you like learning and thinking about the creative process. So without further ado, here's me being interviewed by Ryan Coogler. Enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: You're listening to PROX.
SPEAKER_03: There's a million ways to make something good. Like I've reached this point where I was like, I think there's the beginning of your career. You feel like you don't know how to make something good. And in the middle of your career, you're like, I'm the only one who knows how to make something good. You know, the perfect way. There's like one way to tell a story. And then later on in your career, you're like, there's a million ways to make those good.
SPEAKER_01: You're listening to In Proximity. Roman Mars is the host and creator of 99% Invisible, a sound rich narrative podcast about architecture and design. He's also the co-founder of the independent podcast collective, Radiotopia.
In 2021, his team worked with Proximity Media to produce the Judas and the Black Messiah podcast, which helped tell the true story behind the events portrayed in the film. Judas and the Black Messiah is directed by Shaka King and produced by Proximity Media, Macro, Warner Brothers, and our partners. The story follows FBI informant William O'Neill, played by Lakeith Stanfield, as he infiltrates the Illinois Black Panther Party and is tasked with keeping tabs on their charismatic leader, Chairman Fred Hampton, played by Daniel Kaluuya in an Oscar winning performance. On this episode, Roman sits with our founder, Ryan Coogler, to talk about what they've learned in leading creative teams, their love of audio storytelling, and their collaboration on the Judas and the Black Messiah podcast.
SPEAKER_03: I'm Roman Mars. I'm the host and creator of the show 99% Invisible.
SPEAKER_04: I'm Ryan Coogler. I'm a writer, director, producer, founder of Proximity Media. Super excited to talk with you, bro. I went back to my email to figure out like what the day was that we met. Do you remember what day it was, bro? I just went back and looked. I don't remember what day it was. I mean, I remember where it was. So it was June 9th, 2019. It was the Association of Architects? Yeah, the American Institute of Architects. American Institute of Architects, AIA. It was an architecture conference, right? Yep.
SPEAKER_03:
In Las Vegas. I was hosting it. And you were the keynote. I was the keynote.
SPEAKER_03: You were. You were the keynote interview. Like, sometimes it's a speaker, but mostly it was. Yeah, yeah. You were the final act. Yeah, yeah, it was so cool.
SPEAKER_04:
What's crazy is like, it makes all the sense in the world why you would be here.
SPEAKER_03: I thought it would be fun because, you know, I figure you're asked about a million things when it comes to Black Panther and Marvel and comic books and stuff, but I didn't think that you'd probably ever spent like a dedicated half hour talking about the built world in some way, but I know you'd thought about it. And so that's where I thought it would be actually a ton of fun. And I think it turned out to be pretty fun.
SPEAKER_04: No, it was great. I had a blast. We were in Vegas. Yep. And I remember just being like really excited to meet you because I've been obsessed with podcasts for a long time. And you were there with like, it was a few other podcasters there with you. I remember like right before I went on, I was a little starstruck. That's so kind of you to say. No, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:
What I loved about it was when we got to Vegas, we talked for like, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes before you went on. And all we did was talk about podcasting. You were just like, I like this one. I like this one. We're thinking about doing this podcast, all these ideas that you had. And I knew we were just like, he's in a pod. We had to hit it off in terms of podcasting.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah. And then like shit got weird with the pandemic and everything. But I remember somehow I convinced you to do like a meeting per week with me just to like kind of explain how the podcast business works. And it was great. Like we booked it and like we had the time protected and it got to the point when I was like really looking forward to it because it was during the pandemic when everything was nuts.
SPEAKER_03:
It was really fun for me too. I mean, like we started with you just, you know, we were talking about proximity moving into podcasting and I had sort of started my own independent show and I ran an independent label and that was really fun. But what I remember, we just had this weekly meeting, you know, like it's like five o'clock or something like that. And it was like on a Wednesday or something. Exactly. It was like Wednesday at five. And I talked, you know, one or two hours a week, which is more than I talked to almost anybody. If you ask anybody, there's like, that's pretty unusual for me. But it was totally fun. And what I think I love most about it was it was fun to talk about podcasting. It was fun to hear about movie making from you, but we would have whole two hour conversations about just like politics and life and our families and you know, our upbringing and stuff like that. It was a real salve for me at a time period where I was suffering from a lack of connection to a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01:
SPEAKER_04:
It was great, man. You know, one of the things that I admired the most about it was how you kind of like demystified a lot of things that I heard about the podcast business. Like one of my favorite things you said was like, yo podcasting is radio. You know, I've been doing radio a long time, you know, that unlocked something for me. Could you talk a little bit about how you got started in doing this? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah. I was someone who loved radio. I was in school to do something else. I was trying to be a scientist for a long time and I listened to NPR in the lab. I loved the way the people talked. I just felt comfortable there. And then there was a certain point where I knew science wasn't for me. My sort of Genesis moment was listening to the show called Talk of the Nation. And at the time, Ray Suarez was the host of Talk of the Nation. And there was this there was this episode. It was right around the time of the Clinton scandal with Monica Lewinsky. And the subject of the hour was, if we don't have these type of heroes anymore, who are our modern day heroes? If the president is fallible and is held accountable for something, who is our modern day heroes? And about midway through the hour, someone calls in and says, you know what, Ray Suarez, you're my hero. And I was like sitting there and I was like, you know what, Ray Suarez is my hero too. I feel like I need to work for Ray Suarez. Like I can't do what he does because he just seemed unfathomably good at this to me. But I know that there's a person who reads books and helps him write the questions and I would be very, very good at that job. That's called a producer, but I didn't know that at the time. So then I began to just sort of like work my life into someone who could be in a position to get a job like that. So I left grad school and moved out here. And then that was when I kind of fell in love with radio back then because I couldn't afford a television and listen to the radio all the time. I drove out to San Francisco in the late 90s and that's when I sort of began to sort of figure out how to do stories and got a Marantz, like a cassette recorder, like these big Marantz recorders and began recording people and trying to figure out what I was going to do. I began volunteering at KALW in San Francisco and I just worked at every type of job that they would let me work. And I basically did it for free. And that's how I started in radio. And about this time, the storytelling of Ira Glass was sort of entering into this ascendancy. Like younger people were becoming more interested in radio as a medium and I just kind of fell into it and never looked back.
SPEAKER_04:
That's amazing, man. So were you in college at the time when you had this kind of eureka moment where you listen to race words? I was in grad school.
SPEAKER_03: I studied population genetics and plant genetics. And I loved that stuff. I loved just finding out what made the world was really interesting to me. But in the end, I just liked knowing it.
SPEAKER_04: And so that process of transitioning, like realizing that you had an idea for your own show and deciding to start it, what was that like? Well, so I'd worked on every type of public radio show that you could imagine.
SPEAKER_03: It was sort of like hosting some music shows, storytelling shows. I did my own storytelling show that was local for a while. And that got me the attention of a group called the Third Coast International Audio Festival. I moved to Chicago to work at WBEZ for a while. And then I was working on a show called Snap Judgment as a senior producer there for a little bit. And then 99% Invisible was presented to me as an idea of like the AIA chapter in San Francisco was sort of partnering with KLW to figure out would there be a format for a little two minute insert of a local building to tell a story about. And because of my science education, I've always liked sort of technical subjects, like explaining technical subjects was always really fascinating to me. And I thought about this as an idea. I knew I wanted to expand it kind of more broadly to not be just buildings, but just like anything in the built world. Like my first concept was like curb cuts, like when did curb cuts come into being? There's like little ramps that make it so people with different mobilities can get from across the street essentially. And I was like, I could tell a little story about an everyday thing. And I know that there would be a big story behind what seemed like little decisions. And that was what became 99% Invisible. And it was really like an exercise in could I kind of seduce the audience through like tone of voice and story into caring about things that they pass by every day that they don't think is interesting. And the challenge of that and the challenge of doing an audio story about a largely visual thing that we experienced, like built world design, that was really fun for me.
SPEAKER_04: Imagine, what was it like when you transitioned to being a business owner and multiple people's bosses like while still being an artist? Like how did you find that? How do you find it today? I like that my job always changes.
SPEAKER_03: So inside of radio, there's this thing called a producer. And a producer is I think the highest form of worker and human that there is. A producer is a person who just will solve any problem to get the thing on the air or like available for someone to download. And that could be just like you do interviews, you write, you edit things. You do whatever it takes to get a thing done. And that's what a producer is. And that's why they're like the highest form of worker because they will really do anything to make something happen. And to me, as the job changed and my job was as much about making sure the people under me were paid. I liked solving that problem as much as I love to be in Pro Tools and I love to interview people and stuff like this. I got a real thrill out of building something from scratch and making sure payroll was made. The flip side of enjoying to do everything is you end up doing everything and it's harder to let some of that stuff go. I'm way better at that now because I have people on my team, you know this, it's like they're better at me than things. It's like they're just better and you just like your job is just to get out of the way. And so that part took me more time because it takes a while to bring someone in and show them a thing and they take twice as long as you do and you just want to like, oh, just give it to me. And that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_04:
I actually thought to myself the other day, because you know, when you first get started as a filmmaker, you go to film school and everything, you're the editor, you're the cinematographer, you're holding the boom, you're doing your mix in Pro Tools. I used to know all of these things and I used to be fairly good at all of them. And I was thinking about it now, like, I'm like, if I got dropped off somewhere and it was like, yo, make a movie, I don't think I could do it. You know, because like all those muscles I think of like kind of atrophy, you know, to the point where I'm like, am I just useless now? You know, I feel that way all the time. It's interesting too, because like you talk about like a producer being like the highest form of functioning human on a project. Like in a way, directing is almost the opposite sometimes it feels like. Like if you got like a real well functioning set, you got like good actors, you could kind of like not do anything. The movie is still happening in a way, you know what I'm saying? Like I've had days on set where I felt like really like insignificant, you know what I'm saying? Like just because so much is being delegated at this point. I relate to that, what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_03:
I know that feeling. Like I used to mix and be the final mixer on every episode of the show. In the beginning, it really was just me. And then it quickly became more and more and more people. Now I don't think, Martin Gonzalez, who's our sound engineer, I don't think I could even understand the busing and processing he does to the sound anymore. Like I don't think I could even open it up and really get it, you know? And you just have to just let it, like I used to think that this would be like a spiritual death on my part, you know, to not know how the show worked. And now it's just like, you just sort of ease into it, like freezing to death or like, let it go.
SPEAKER_04: Let it go. Yeah, you just work your way to obsolescence. You know what I'm saying? I think that's really interesting. So look, what's great about our relationship was like, we didn't just talk about things. We actually got to make something together. That was really profoundly exciting for me. It was honestly like what I liked a lot about you was that we would talk, but it was very clear to me that I was talking to another person who was a doer. It wasn't just like pipe dreams. If we had the opportunity to work on something and do something together, I had this feeling like it would actually happen. And we got that opportunity with the Judas and the Black Messiah podcast. It was our first time as a company making something in audio. This was before we hired the great Paul Lamarto who runs that division for us. We were like outsourcing it to you guys to make it plain. I just found a process like exhilarating.
SPEAKER_03:
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SPEAKER_04: So one of Proximity Media's first films was Judas and the Black Messiah, which was co-written and directed by Shaka King. And I was fortunate enough to be a producer on it along with my partners, Seba Hanyin and Zinzi Coogler. It was an incredible process. But we also had a companion podcast to the film, which was narrated by Elvis Mitchell and produced by Roman Mars, Christopher Johnson, and the team at 99% Invisible. And it was a companion piece to the film that really went into the making of it. But through the eyes of Chairman Fred Hampton's son, Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. And it was a really moving experience getting to make the podcast. Specifically, I remember when we were talking about the show and trying to figure out if there was a show there and what made sense. We spoke for a long time. I blabbed a lot about the process, what was going on and how it was clear to us that the show would be helpful in terms of Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. talking about the film. And really, we looked at it as a companion piece that could help him and his mother, Mother Akua, process what it's like to have this person's story told through a magic motion picture that affected their lives. His father, that political leader, and you said something that was really incredible. You kind of boiled down to a sentence and you said, this show should be about a guy who's trying to protect his father's legacy. And it was like, boom, like I understood it. In filmmaking terms, I got my protagonist, you know what I'm saying? I got the action that they're trying to do. And now I'm on the hook because it will, they won't, they, you know what I mean? And I thought that was just fantastic. Well, I just wanted to be involved because there was a real reason for Judas and the
SPEAKER_03:
Black Messiah podcast to exist because there was a person there in Chairman Jr. who had something to say, who, because of the necessity of two hour film, you know, dramatic entertainment, can't have everything in it. Like it just can't. People have to be streamlined. People have to be combined, you know, like it's just the way it is.
SPEAKER_04: And you have very real limitations at a medium. I mean, it's incredible. You can tell so much more like in a single image, it tells so much, but also just like
SPEAKER_03: there's a way that people watch things that you just can't cram in all those details the way you can in a conversation that people follow. And, you know, so I loved the challenge of it. And I loved that it just had, you know, like I'm a design guy. Like to me, like things have to have a reason to exist. They can't just exist to be filigree or extra or promotion. Like this was a companion that I thought moved the story forward in a way. And Chairman like needed production. Like he had so much to say that it was like, okay, so how do we order this? Like how do we think about this? How do we think about Mama Kua and how we think about the fact that he meets this person playing his dad who he never really met, you know, all that sort of stuff was so like intense and interesting. And like, he had these insights about filmmaking that were so interesting to me to kind of listen in on. I should stress here that Christopher Johnson produced this thing. I like helped, you know what I mean? Like a little bit. But I brought in Christopher Johnson to make the thing. Shout out to Christopher. Yeah. But like Chairman Jr. had these insights like on set about just the sort of blocking of like having this white supremacist standing over his father. And he's like, his father would never do that. And it's like these things that were like, yep, that's right. It took someone like that. And having that conversation was just really, really interesting. And your partners at Warner Brothers were really good about letting him be critical and have it be genuine. I was impressed by that. They were just like, it was a cool problem to solve of like, how do you make a companion where this person like really has like things to say and not all of them are like, this is great. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And it just felt real.
SPEAKER_04: It was interesting because we were the obstacle. You know what I mean? And that log line is like, hey, you know, this is about a guy trying to protect his father's legacy. Like what's implied theory is he's trying to protect it from any kind of missteps we were making in the film. You know what I'm saying? He's trying to protect it from this system that has to flatten things in order to do his job. It came together. It was a remarkable piece of journalism. But what I remember that one of my fondest memories was, I can't remember what exactly the term is that you call it, but it was like when you guys had the script up on a Google doc. Yeah. And just kind of like we were listening to it. You had all your folks kind of like chiming in in the notes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah. We call that a read to tape. It's like a table read. We call it read to tape. So we have the, all the clips out. We have like your parts, Christopher Redd, Elvis's parts. You know, I would read some of them and then we have the tape and then there's all these sort of notes in the margin. So like if there's a mess up, we just keep going, you know, and everyone makes little notes in the margin. And I remember we invited you to it. And I remember this very cutely because I said, you know, we do this for like three hours. It's long, it's tedious. We go over every little word and phrase and it might be really boring. And you said to me, I look at a guy picking up a coffee cup 30 times to figure out which one I'm going to use. There is nothing too boring for me.
SPEAKER_03: It's like six hours of a coffee cup. Oh yeah. It's a true story. And so, so yeah. And that was really delightful. And it's the moment, you know, it's coming to life. Like there's a, you know, I recommend when anyone makes a thing, it's very important to have these, like to experience it with other people because you feel the slow parts, the parts that just embarrass you, the parts that like you feel them when people are next to you, that you don't feel it by yourself. Like you have to have these moments of sharing little bits of it because like, to me, like my ears get hot, you know, like, like I get embarrassed about it and I want that for you to go away so badly, you know? So I go in and fix it. Oh yeah. No, a hundred percent, man.
SPEAKER_04:
I really enjoyed that process. I got this theory, like I'm getting more evidence of it. The order I get is that nobody really knows what anybody's job is like, you know what I'm saying? Like, and you got no idea. You open up your mailbox and your mail is there. You got no idea how it got there, what it took, you know, and that you can't really appreciate something until you understand what went into it. And most things you'll never know. I remember being on that call with you all and seeing everybody like thinking so deeply, considering every word, questioning things. And I thought like, yes, this makes sense. I love it. This much care is going into this thing. And I love that this is how these things are made. You know what I mean? Like these podcasts I listen to these radio stories I listen to these, whether it's 15 minutes or 20 minutes, seeing that process and knowing that it's something that's been developed over time. I got to imagine that system that reads the type system. How long would you say that system has been around? Roman? I mean, for me, the thing was, is I did so much of it by myself for a long time that
SPEAKER_03:
there was no one to kind of work with. But like, as soon as we had more than three people, we began doing it. And I know other shows do it. Or maybe they, you know, it's not uncommon to instead, like, record it or record scratch tracks of it and just send it around for notes and stuff like this. But I find something like really good comes out in the moment, doing it live. You learn things and you learn, you know, especially because like someone's writing for me, like in those situations, I mean, not on Judas, but like on 99. They're writing a thing that needs to be said for me to say, and then I would go, well, I think I'd say a little differently here, or that's really, you know, sometimes I really capture my voice or make a joke or sometimes a joke comes out through that process. And I've always sort of felt like what I liked about the format of 99% Invisible, because I kind of am there as a host, like interjecting kind of all the time, was that I wanted the opportunity to, you know, to react and someone says a thing and rather than just let it sort of sit there, everyone's thinking the same thing. So it would be fun just to say it, you know, like. And so we figured that out for our show and it's just, it's a, I mean, it's like the best part of my day. We do probably one of those a week and sometimes it's hard, but like, you know, you've cracked it, but it's just like, that's the, I, you know, I sit and now it's like sit in a zoom with like six or seven other people. I'm like hearing their work for the first time and seeing it come together and seeing them take big swings and seeing some of them connect and some of them don't, it's just I just recommend that you like get a group together and get a good group of people and help them be your editors because no one has that good a taste or that good of instincts. Like there's a million ways to make something good. Like I've reached this point where I was like, I think there's the beginning of your career. You feel like you don't know how to make something good. And in the middle of your career, you're like, I'm the only one who knows how to make something good. And you, you know, the perfect way, there's like one way to tell a story. And then later on in your career, you're like, there's a million ways to make this good. Like I've heard and seen people do it so good and you could do it differently or you could choose this one or you could say it this way. You just have to write your way out of it to make it make sense for the audience and you're serving an audience. But there's like a million ways to make a good radio story. There's a million ways to make a good movie. And so once you sort of get into that zone, you allow people to like, to try lots of different things that you would never try. I mean, that is like heaven as a creator is to have a team around you who brings you things that just blow you away. You know, I feel like that when I produce for other directors, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:
SPEAKER_04:
Like, like we're talking about Judas. I felt, I felt like that was shocking. Like every day it was like, y'all would never make this choice, but it's a perfect choice. You know what I mean? And I get to be around it. It was, it was fantastic.
SPEAKER_03:
What I liked about working with you on Judas and all that sort of stuff and those conversations we had was like, you had other things to do. I mean, you were writing Wakanda Forever at the time you had a lot going on, but like no part of the podcast process was uninteresting to you.
SPEAKER_04: It was, I love it, man. I felt fortunate to be involved, man. It was like a dream of mine, you know, like to make a podcast in general. Cause I think the medium is so fascinating. It still is fascinating to me, man. Like I'll see stuff. We had a meeting this morning and looked at some stuff Paula was doing and I was like, man, it's, you know, it's so, it's so cool. And it's, and it has similarities to what we do as filmmakers. But at the same time, it is very, it is very different. It requires like another form of thinking. Dude, I love it, man. It's few things I love as much as that specific medium.
SPEAKER_04: So for my Prox Rec, I'm going to take the easy way out and I'm going to recommend Roman's book, The 99% Invisible City. I like that. I think that it's a great book, a great piece of art. And it's really cool for me because, you know, obviously Roman makes audio. It was great for me to have a physical thing. I kind of see it as almost like a companion if you're a fan of the show, but it's a lot of great work in there. A lot of great work in journalism and art. Makes a great coffee table edition. You know what I mean? It looks great on a bookshelf. You know, they press your friends and they come over and they see it. That's my Prox Rec for today. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: I would add that I wrote parts of that, but my co-author Kurt Kohlstedt, who like, honestly, if he didn't work on that book, that book would have never gotten done. So he's a real driving force behind the book, but I thank you so much. That means the world to me. I guess if you were interested in the craft of radio making, audio making, I think few places are more thoughtful than the website transom.org. You could learn a ton and how people make things, understand what they're doing. Like what does it imply when like you have music and the music goes out and then the next thing you say, like all of a sudden it becomes very important. You know, like learning tricks like this that you pick up on, but you just don't, you probably never really saw them articulated or heard them in such a way that you got what the emotion was. And that's the same things that I'm sure you learn in like film school and stuff like this is like, this is what this does. This is what this cut does. You know, speeding up the, I don't know, the edits, you know, like you do this type of rhythm, you know, stuff like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: It's a language. You call it the language of cinema. Every art form has its language.
SPEAKER_03: Totally. And so the audio, like the best people for breaking that down and understanding how to do a type of audio storytelling is transom.org and I'd really recommend it. And the other thing I recommend is just like listening to things.
I like everything.
SPEAKER_04: Roman, I want to thank you for being on our show in proximity means the world that you made time. And I think folks really enjoy what you had to say. So thank you bro.
SPEAKER_03: It's my pleasure. It was a real honor.
SPEAKER_01: In Proximity is a production of Proximity Media. If you like the show, be sure to follow, rate and review it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app and tell your friends and loved ones to do the same. If you have someone in your life who you think would like the show, send them a link. To check out Judas and the Black Messiah, the film and podcast and 99% invisible head to proximitymedia.com. We've got links on the show page.
Don't forget to follow at Proximity Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. The show is produced by me, Paula Mardo. Executive producers are Ryan Coogler, Zinzi Coogler, Sevo Hanyan and me. Our theme song and additional music is composed by Ludwig Goranson. And Nana is our sound designer and mix engineer. Paulina Charizova is our production assistant. Audio editing for this episode is by Cedric Wilson. Special thanks to the whole Proximity Media team and to you for listening to In Proximity.
SPEAKER_04: It was great, man. I remember that day I came by and got the book and I was kind of like, man, this is where you live. It was so close. It was like down the street. We had done all these zooms. It was like you get this feeling of somebody like halfway across the world. You know what I'm saying?
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